Cambridge expert: I’m a scapegoat

THE Cambridge academic who developed the app used to harvest Facebook data yesterday claimed he has been made a scapegoat.

Dr Aleksandr Kogan created a personality survey that was used by British firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) to access 50 million social media profiles.

The psychology expert, who was paid £570,000 for his research, insisted he never profited personally and believed his actions were ‘perfectly legal’ and within Facebook’s ‘terms of service’.

He said CA told him ‘maybe tens of thousands of apps were doing the exact same thing’. Last night he hit out as it emerged that Cambridge University is set to investigate his role in the scandal.

He told the BBC: ‘I’m being basisome

cally used as a scapegoat by both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Honestly, we thought we were acting perfectly appropriately.’

The academic, who joined Cambridge’s psychology department as a lecturer in 2012, also said the accuracy of the data had been ‘extremely exaggerated’. He added: ‘What Cambridge Analytica has tried to sell is magic.’